Traditionally, air bags installed in a vehicle interior are concealed from the view of a passenger by panels or covers. These panels or covers are designed to conceal the air bag during normal vehicle operation, but still allow the air bag to inflate into the passenger compartment with little restriction in an emergency situation.
One method of concealing the air bag and still allow for uninhibited air bag inflation is to cover the air bag system with a textured skin designed to tear or break away during air bag deployment. The skin appears complete and intact to a passenger, but contains hidden weak points that tear under the trauma of an air bag deployment. Current methods to create a weakened area in the textured skin include the use of secondary stamping, perforating or cutting operations which are costly and sometimes inaccurate. The subject invention improves on these methods by utilizing an encapsulated filament or contaminant to create weakened points within the textured skin.